The U.S.’s Most Secure Prison: ADX Florence

ADX Florence, built south of Florence Colorado in 1994, is the most secure prison in the United States prison system. Commonly referred to as a “Supermax” prison, it has 490 beds in a compound which encompasses 37 acres.

The prison was designed to house prisoners deemed too dangerous or high-profile for regular incarceration, and nearly 95% of all inmates that have been sent to Florence were transfers with histories of violent behavior in other prison facilities.

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ADX Florence is known for its harsh conditions; inmates are kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The hour they are allowed out is into a bigger cell with vaulted ceilings called the “empty swimming pool.” This room has a 4-inch by 4-foot skylight as the only window. It is designed to prevent the prisoners from knowing where they are, and they still spend this time alone.

For at least the first three years, prisoners are not allowed to come into contact with other prisoners at any time – anywhere on the premises. Over time, good behavior can earn inmates more “outside” time, and for the most fortunate a possible transfer back to a less-secure prison can await.

The cell furniture is limited to a desk, stool, and a bed, and each is constructed of poured concrete. The toilets are designed to shut off if plugged and the showers are on timers. Rooms may have mirrors, lights, radios, and in very rare instances televisions – but these are used as privileges based on behavior and are seldom awarded.

There is no mess hall; food is hand-delivered to each inmate by the guards. The prison has a multitude of motion detectors and cameras, 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors, and 12-foot high razor wire fences. As an added level of security, laser beams, pressure pads, and attack dogs guard the area surrounding the prison’s outlying fences.

Conditions are described as harsh, but clean and fair; it would be difficult to classify the prisoners as being “unfairly treated” given the circumstances which likely got them there. Former ADX wardens have described the place as “a cleaner version of Hell.”

The prison operates under the strategy of sensory deprivation and solitude. Inmates are left to their own thoughts, which often leads to hallucinations, memory loss, and increasingly irritable behavior.

Famous Residents

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Unabomber Ted Kaczynski

shoe bomber Richard Reid

Oklahoma City bomber accomplice Terry Nichols

Robert Hanssen, former FBI agent who spied for Soviets against US.

Thomas Silverstein

ADX Florence is home to some of this country’s most violent and evil criminals; it is also the number-one holding facility for convicted terrorists. As of the date of this article, the prison houses over 400 violent criminals including those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 2001 World Trade Center Attacks.

One of the most famous residents is Thomas Silverstein (at left), a convicted murderer and former Aryan Brotherhood leader who has committed four additional murders while imprisoned.

Silverstein currently holds the record of being the longest resident of solitary confinement in the United States prison system, having been in solitary since 1983. Silverstein is often credited with being one of the reasons the ADX Supermax was designed due to his uncontrollable activities in other prisons.

Defenders of the Supermax prison point out that criminals housed inside have previously shown no regard for human life on multiple occasions, with many having committed murders in other prisons around the country in addition to their initial heinous crimes.

Historically, the addition of another life sentence to a prisoner who already has one hasn’t proved successful. Harsher penalties were needed to restore order and deter prisoners from killing prison guards. The threat of being transferred to solitary confinement at ADX Florence is the best deterrent in the prison system The United States has against violent crime.

8 months of winter?….. It’s a high deset there, so don’t try to make it seem difficult because of weather. And the inmates who are doing all the whining are just wanting sympathy because there is no way to continue their mayhem. They are there because they committed brutal crimes on the outside and continued to brutalize officers and staff and other inmates while incarcerated. They earned this type of incarceration, it’s almost on par with the death penalty.

AT LEVEL ONE:It’s better to create excellent kindergartens for children to be taught manners and good behaviours and then good schools,colleges and universities to make good human biengs and proffessionals.This will reduce the cause of committing crime. AT LEVEL TWO:Prisons should be transformed into Civility Centres.Inmates should be taught how good human biengs are supposed to live in soceity, and their progress should be gauged by their own descriptions and answers to humanity questions.Nothing is impossible for a state.if a state wants that it be turned into a heaven,it all needs to commit itself to bringing the conditions of a heaven,otherwise it will remain a hell,with severe prisons and torture centres for its own and allien citizens.

Not sure that would work on psychopathic and psychotic killers. Re-education for “better manners and better behaviors” seems to me simplistic. Teaching Ted Kozinski to say please and thank you might not stop him from mailing bombs to people.

Have you ever worked with or known some of these people. “Let’s just teach the lion to be a vegan.” Time and again, this philosophy of yours has proven unsuccessful. We continue to test so called proven programs for rehabilitation, only to watch them fail at the behest of the experts, who most likely have never actually worked with these monsters. The experts learned about them in University, and became a policy author for that which she/he may be book smart, yet has no real world knowledge of.

I find it ironic that prisoners who have forfeited their right to live in society by murdering other people, often with random bombings of innocent strangers, can now complain about forced isolation from other people. What about the rights of the rest of us to be separated from psychopaths who commit such crimes? ADX-Florence was born out of the necessity of protecting decent people from those unfit to live in society. And in many cases the inmates who populate this super-max facility have proven themselves unfit to even live among other prisoners.

these people are in jail for taking lives taking the place of god, should they be taken out, who am i to decide i am not god and neither are any of us. So by killing these people we become no better than they are.And such an easy way out. Let them live in hell on earth until god decides its time for them to go to the real one. adx is perfect let them rot. the only rights they should have is
to live. all others should be taken no matter how inhumane.

Honestly, in my opinion, the people that are here deserve to live the rest of their lives in this hell. They shouldn’t been given the satisfaction of dying. They should live the rest of their lives like this people the friends and family of those they destroyed have to live the rest of their lives in sorrow.
Just my opinion though!

I agree that complete isolation would not be easy for a sane individual, personally I don’t find these people to be sane. What I find insane is using taxpayer money to support this refuse. Although this is not a hotel, they are still getting 3 squares a day, a bed to sleep in out of the heat ,cold,rain, snow, etc. Oh, and free healthcare. Pretty sad when you consider all the many homeless that are out there through no fault of their own. I thought I had heard that it costs around 100,000 pr yr to house a max security inmate. Now that’s insane! Some are so against the death penalty, would you still be against it if a friend or family was the one that they murdered? You will find no bleeding heart here. Obviously the current system is not working. True criminals are not afraid of going to prison. We need to do something to make them scared. The way it is now seems more to me like pampering. Isolation should be just one of the conditions. A cold dark room with a dirt floor, stifling heat and a day filled with brutal work would make me feel better about this system. Prisoners should not have it better than the homeless!

The Clergy in any religion is a danger because it spreads fundamentalism and divides humanity It bases its illogical teachings on unconfirmed and scientifically unverifiable views regarding Existance,Life and Universal Phenomenon.When light comes,darkness vanishes.Spread of positive knowlege regarding humanity,human virtues,human duties towards life and ecology, common human problems and needs,and social interaction can reduce such problems.The US and Western Europe with so much resources can defend humanity against the clerical divisions,be they by the Muslim clerics or other clergies i.e Christian or Hindu etc.

I can understand the death penalty as an only fair price for some crimes where life or happiness of another is forever destroyed, but I could never understand the vindictive evil soul that finds pleasure and satisfaction in torturing the criminal. Only God can appropriate and inflict torture and retribution. The role of the government and society should be limited to removing the dangerous element from further damaging the societal interest and rehabbing the criminal conduct of the individual with least and efficient expense. Incarceration has proved to be a failure and costly. In many instances, the death penalty could be more appropriate than incarceration, but the problem remains in the judicial process where access to justice depends on the individual fortune and political status. Where “reasonable doubt” remains vaguely defined and more dependent on jury selection, the death penalty can only remain a bigger nightmare than crime itself. But even if life sentence becomes inevitable, a human retains many rights among which the right to basic physical needs, mental and intellectual growth, social bonding and interaction, and even the right to earn an income if so desired. Experience has shown that the more human the prison conditions are, the more probable the rehabilitation of the criminal behavior is. In the US, the prison system has become more of a commerce, political agenda, and small towns economy than an effective governmental function to maintain peace and order.

hi , i dont agree with everything you said but I do agree with some… having know a few people who have graced the prison system (stupid stuff – suspended DL or DUI) I was stunned to learn of the financial gain and rampit abuse of skewing numbers for federal monies…. not to mention the lack of simple information to friends and family about process – Those who come visit or see if they can offer assistance to someone incarcerated are treated like criminals too! I had NO idea and bought into the nightly news about prison systems… personally I think the corruption starts at the top and meeting their budgets and works its way down… but ok I am getting a little off topic – just my two cents

This is the worst place any human can ever be placed….I can understand if the person had killed for not defending him self, but as an desire, or raping children, but for being blamed for robbing a bank with out evidence and place on death roll for protecting themselves from a”green light” on his life, and then lied on by Deputies ” this guy in a treat to society he attacked a guard with a 10 Inch knife” and the person was in death role solitaire, how did he get the 10 inch knife when a person is stripe searched before thrown into the grimmie cell without clothing…Figure that one out!

Black dolphin is the most secure prison iv ever seen. Watch the documentary on Russia’s tuffest prisons. When I saw that place and how its ran. There can’t be a prison in the world more harsh and secure then that one. Unless there’s guys being tortured some where else. That place and the rules there. Nothing compares

There are places in the world where torture is commonplace. Do you remember any of the horror stories of the insane things done to inmates by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq? While the isolation would be brutal in a supermax prison, i think most people would deal with that than physical torture on some regular basis.

Seems to me Gitmo is pretty secure and quite harsh. Many held there similar to ADX
but for political reasons. Many are not violent offenders. It makes Gitmo quit a horror story. ADX prisoners do deserve what they get. Some at Gitmo do not.

That Russian prison someone mention should probably be the harshest. And how does one escape in winter, which is probably 8 months of the year? By the way, the link to
the YouTube video has been cancelled by YouTube. It doesn’t work.

I was an employee of the FEDERAL BAUREAU of Prisions for 27 years I have worked at 7or 8 institutions from camps to medium security institutions to the the penitentaries During my tenure I have had number a jobs inside the ferderal prison system. This has enabled me to be right in the thick of things I have seen escapes, killings, suicides, rapes, good conditions and poor contitions. The day to day operations of an institution largely contribute to the amount of unrest that may be at the JOINT.
Imates “act out” when conditions are poor, thru murder, taking hostges, killing snitches, trying to control other groups.setting fires, food strikes and general destruction In the Supermax, they have made it so there is very little movement They come outfor one hour a day to recreate in a concrete cage. After that “recreation” the inmate in back in his cell the other 23 hours a day. The window in their cell is four inches wide and three foot long. When you look out you only see the sky. This is a securtiy mesure used to cause disoriention of th prisioner

Even though all work often becomes just day-to-day going there,coming home. Often if not most of the time, your experience for those 27 years much have been fascinating. Also, few jobs/professions require 100% focus, and you jobs mostly did. It is like being a pilot landing and taking off all the time for 27 years.

Long term solitary confinement is a human rights violation and torture. I do not support the use of torture in any form. Solitary confinement costs twice as much as high security incarceration it causes psychoses and inmates released from solitary are more likely to hurt people even without a prior history of violence. When the UN asked if we systematically used solitary confinement in our prisons Obama lied and said we did not. Solitary is not reserved for the worst of the worst – an inmate who spit on a guard was placed there. While there may be some punitive value in using it for short term punishment there is no justification for long term use. The entire prison system needs reform. The drug war needs to end now.

I was one of the thousands of people who worked on the construction of it, back in the early 90’s and it is secure, triply secure. No way out, or in, for that matter.Every aspect of the cells is controlled by the guards. It the seg. a prisoner is behind at least 4 steel door/bar combos. The bad boys can be controlled–

I was a prisoner inside the place you all speak of on this site. Most of your comments and opinions are wrong, presumptuous and/or offensive. But I’m gad you all were not running anything, or i would be dead, rather then sitting here at home with my woman right now.